Collecting, Processing and Storage of Plant Materials for Nutritional Analysis

Abstract

A solid sampling strategy for plant material is the first step in screening forages for nutritional analysis and extra-nutritional attributes to determine if potential forage species, with good adaptation and biomass production are suitable for use as livestock feeds. Since the morphological phenotype is rarely a good indicator of nutritional traits, nutritional analysis is essential when selecting plants as feeds. It is not possible to select forages based solely on biomass production without taking into account the nutritional and anti-nutritional attributes. Some species with leafy and high productivity may contain plant secondary metabolites that may be toxic and make them unsuitable for use as feeds. A good example of this is Leucaena, which is fast growing and yields up to 15 tons/ha of forage dry matter per year, but because of the mimosine in the leaves could initially only be fed in quantities up to 30% of the diet without causing toxicity symptoms. This was not apparent from looking at the plant and emphasizes the need to do a thorough nutritional evaluation before introducing new species as livestock feeds. However, identification of mimosine degrading rumen microbes now allows livestock to consume larger quantities [5] and makes this both a productive and nutritionally useful forage plant in many tropical livestock systems.

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